November 2016

To understand how diseases come into this country, especially epidemic disease patterns brought about due to natural history and ecological events, it helps to view their historical routes and their most recent routes.

The historical routes of disease transmission are well documented by the various medical maps published, a number of the most important of which are posted throughout this site devoted to medical history and historic medical geography.

I produced maps of the recent migration patterns of disease in this country about ten years ago, and have most of them posted in various sites, ranging from blog pages, to several of my old and new Youtube domains, to ScoopIt! and even Facebook on occasion.

The best way to find my way of interpreting and mapping diseases, both past and present. one need only type in my last name and whatever topi he/she is interested in. Now, I am not sure why this is the case, but Google has been very supporting of my work and pages, which may be because I like to stay away from heavy ads as much as possible.

In view of the recent penetration of this country by several important diseases migrating in, I have a few examples to demonstrate here of diseases that are foreign born. remember, there are common, very obvious routes of travel for people and disease. So they do tend to penetrate the US border by way of both coasts, and the Mexican border on up the Mississippi River valley. On occasion you seen diseases that favor the Pacific Rim route for penetration, or the east coast of California from the Caribbean, or the northern border where homeland security is concerned mostly with human borne diseases, not the tropical diseases, like Yellow Fever and a few from Africa, which successfully came into the US first by way of the Great Lakes inland routes and then the northern boundaries.

The following are posted because they are interesting diseases that I produced videos of, to then compare them to each other and come up with new discoveries, some previously unexplored spatial behaviors for international disease migrations.

Chiclero’s Ulcer, developed by harvesting practices engaged on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico.

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Chagas. The cluster can probably be linked to migrations by way of a missions program or non-profit group devoted to this public health cocnern

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Bejel, from the Middle East.

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Yaws

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Pinta and its various subgroups, with zoom-ins or close \-ups

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Takayasu’s Disease, with zoom in to NY tried years ago for the first time, a disease from Hawaii and Japan (cited as Takosubo my mistake)

Posted by Brian Altonen, MPH, MS under Uncategorized Comments Off on All about Turkey Farms

From my page “The James Way” of Raising Turkeys at https://brianaltonenmph.com/historical-buildings-and-sites/the-james-way-for-hens-and-turkeys/

In view of the days ahead, I felt it to be a great idea to remind us of the stories we get told as kids about our history. One of these tales is that of the Pilgrims and the Indians and how “the first Thanksgiving” was spent.

Well, it wasn’t the first Thanksgiving as we know it today. But it may have been the first month when the cold was so terrible, that the first settlers didn’t think they would make it until spring. We are often taught that was not the case, since they somehow managed to have a fall time feast with “their newest neighbors” (or was it the other way in the original story?)

A changing of generations: the old barn and the new from a late 19th C to mid 20th C Turkey farm in Dutchess County, NY

Whatever the case, the tale of turkeys and “Thanks be to giving them to us” seems to have meaning in the U.S., oops. . . back then it was still an unnamed part of the New World, surrounding the hamlet of Plymouth.

A second generation farm on the same property, built ca. 1940-50

Several years ago I had the fortune of visiting one of the region’s most successful, big turkey farms, now gone to pieces and about to loose all of its relics from long ago, when turkeys were raised in densely packed buildings, grown from freshly laid eggs into two year old fowls, treated constantly for the risk of new contagions and vermin, thanks to the great researchers at the nearby State Farm College setting (Cornell).

Each section of these long barns held the fowl at different stages in life; the entire series of these slides, representing the different stages in growth, appear on the page links that appear on this posting.

The James Way farm was a barn that could be constructed in pieces. The invention of this new form of building construction enabled barns to be raised almost as fast as those of the Amish, but with a lot less people and neighbors.

Jamesway airvents in the ceilings

This series of pictures I took of this unique piece of farming history in Dutchess County is on a page I produced years back.

The end and middle of sections where the poults were raised, at varying ages. They were moved from the heat lamps near the hatchery to the caged areas at the opposite end of the floor over a few weeks. At this opposing end, they were fed a recipe laced with Fort Orange Turkey Starter, inspected regular by a licensed vet (Dr. Crum); this was to prevent bacterial outbreaks on their skin and in their respiratory passages.

This interesting tale of this barn and its sequel, a cement block version of it that ultimately led to the first turkey manufactories, can be found at

As the character of farms and their content changed, so too did their cost, safety, industrialization and methods of use. This transition or change in a business over time, and its relation to changes in land use patterns and natural resource requirements, is termed SEQUENT OCCUPANCY, a study of land use developed in the 1890s by geographers.

In the long run, there is not much difference in the way we raised turkeys about a century ago, and how they are raised today, except for the technology–at least in the big business setting.

A product perfected by researchers at Cornell University, for preventing avian diseases from erupting that killed off entire flocks

And yes, I am holding back on saying anything for the moment about some of the huge megabusinesses responsible for cloning and bioengineering farm crops–both plants and animals.

Few of us known that the first animal patent was secured by a NY Ivy League school around 1850-1855. It was for a cow that produced huge volumes of milk. The agreement made between the US Patent Office and the university was that the university was allowed to hold the patent, but it had to allow the “product” to remain in the public domain for all of its subsequent years.

Posted by Brian Altonen, MPH, MS under Uncategorized Comments Off on Liver Flukes – re-emergence in the U.S.

It is Veteran’s Day!

What important Public Health issues should this remind us of as public health, spatial epidemiology specialists?

War has always led to advancements in medicine. The Crimean War between England and Russia led to the use of large hospitals, the discovery of contamination and infection on recuperating soldiers’ lives, and the need to better patient care; due to the work of the famous Florence Nightingale, the nursing profession and school were born. The Civil War or War of the Union in the United States is where physicians first demonstrated the power of the antiseptic and the value of clean surgical practices; this war led to many amputations, and with time resulted in a need for a new profession–the prosthetic limb manufactories. It also demonstrated the value of ether in performing operations.

The Spanish-American way is where we developed the first large scale floating hospitals, with a complete hospital on board in terms of staff and supplies. World War I unfortunately was the first war where chemical warfare became common, and where nutritional deficits and appropriate foot apparel often seemed to be the determinants. During World War II, these ventures continued, and due to the development of the single winged airplane, the first studies of high altitude impacts on pilots were test, at research programs set up on Long Island, in order to document better ways for pilots to survive high elevation manuveurs, tolerating the cold and lesser oxygen pressures.

The Korean War gave us the MASH units. The Vietnam War resulted in the exposure of soldiers to some of the least health environments, due to natural pathogens and toxins, and due to the chemicals, insecticides, pesticides and defoliating agents used indiscriminately across the battlegrounds that soldiers traveled through.

The most recent wars have exposed soldier to innumerable potential pathogens and health impacting materials. From the Vietnam War on, the surgical practices of the military were forced to deal with high technology weapons and exposure to the unknown. At first, short term impacts on health were well documented. Now, as the decades have passed, the long term impacts of exposure to natural and manmade elements during the war are beginning to demonstrate another cycle in unhealthy effects upon the human body. The long term effects of Liver Fluke disease recently reached the news.

Liver fluke disease has local or native forms and one highly important Asian borne form. Whether the new cases documented for Chinese Liver Fluke are of some new local origin, or due to decades old exposure histories remains to be verified beyond any doubt. The International spread of disease like Liver Fluke, due to human migration or business (military) related travel should be of concern to the U.S., which has for more than a century worked effectively at keeping foreign born infectious and vectored diseases out of this country, for the most part. With the recent outbreaks of West Nile, Chikungunya, Yellow Fever, Ebola, and most recently Zika, the likely return of 19th century disease to this country seems inevitable.

A number of years ago I had the chance to, for the first time, generate maps of international diseases and how they were dispersing in the United States from about 2000 to 2010. To achieve this goal, I drew up a series of US maps demonstrating where the diseases from particular parts of the world are derived. As an example, the following is of Japan specific diseases, recognized by mapping the ICDs for these diseases and where their patients reside, based upon the 70M-110M patients EMRs that were evaluated years ago.

Japan

I also produced the following interesting review of disease from Africa . . .

Africa

The USSR:

U.S.S.R.

Middle and South America . . .

Middle and South America

Asia in general . . .

Asia

Australia . . .

Australia

Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

The follow videos were used for teaching. They were developed to show the value of using GIS/RS (remote Sensing) techniques to evaluate spatial data. Standard algorithms were applied to this 3D model I generated of the US disease patterns, to demonstrate the value of regular, squared and cuboidal spatial data analyses.

This video was used to demonstrate how to evaluate a disease pattern up close (around the great lakes this time), to determine possible diffusion routes for the illness, or its biological, ecology and/or zoonotic causes.

The following is applied to an actual geomorphogenically defined disease region, a disease dependent upon densely population area with a certain climate pattern, and a certain rock and soil type that assists the organism in its survival.

For each of the above videos I present here (of the hundreds I developed), many of these were very brief, but are the first depictions of this kind for the country, for so many people (1/4-1/3 the nation).

Veterans-related Spatial Surveillance

Fifty years ago, United States soldiers serving in the Vietnam war exposed themselves to a variety of pathogens native to the local waterways. Since the seventies, discussions on the long term effects of this war, besides the physical and psychological impacts of the war itself, focused on the long term effects of agent orange, exposure to local toxic chemicals, exposure to the waterborne schistosomes.

(for which, see )

Live fluke is one of the oriental water born diseases that has experienced its peaks and lulls in U.S. epidemiological history. The disease ecology of liver flukes in fact entails a number of diseases, not just this particular fluke now possibly impacting some Vietnam war vets.

The Farmer’s Liver Fluke natural in the U.S. impacts mostly the eastern half of the United States.

Another liver fluke is associated with domestic animals, the Feline Liver Fluke, which again demonstrates east coast dominance and lower latitude (high temperature) west coast dominance.

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The Liver Fluke that the Vets are now talking about in the U.S. may be something they captured decades ago. But another possibility is the infection of these people due to their dietary patterns. There is growing concern about the infection of people in the US by poorly processed foreign foods. In particular, sushi is linked to a number of organism related diseases where the source is food that has not been fully processed.

Still, regardless of the source, veterans or in-migrating animals and people, the Chinese Liver Fluke has to be the most important growing concern for up and coming liver fluke outbreaks in the U.S.

The following illustrates the distribution of this disease in the US, up until 2012.

Notice the peak in the Seattle area, one near the Great Lakes, and two along the Mississippi River valley. The latter two are situated along a common route traveled by in-migrating Asiatic populations over the years.

The cause for re-emergence of the Chinese Liver Fluke version of this disease pattern in the U.S. should be our primary concern. Understanding its method of penetrating the U.S. might provide us with insights into how the other diseases from China and South Asia may penetrate this country.

The skills of analyzing a disease like Chinese Liver Fluke sets the stage for how spatial epidemiologists need to review other internationally dispersed zoonomic and microbial disease patterns.

There are also a variety of tick, fly and chigger born diseases that aren’t covered here, that may break out. Several forms of meningitis and encephalitis may become epidemic or endemic in nature in the U.S., should the borders not be managed and secured properly. Livestock diseases like Texas Fever and Bovine Tuberculosis, diseases eradicated in the nineteenth century, could very well return due to the lack of sophisticated monitoring systems established in the most important healthcare places–the managed care business settings.

In essence, this problem is in its infancy right now. World Health Organization already failed several times these past years with Ebola, Chikungunya and Zika. As the other opportunistic diseases arrive in the country, we will begin to demonstrate a reversal of the epidemiological transition that took place in the U.S. between 1820 and present.

For every century of growth that occurred in epidemiological transition, only a decade is required to reverse all of the accomplishments that were made. This is well demonstrated by the last decade’s worth of changes in public health, disease ecology and epidemiological complexity.

Of all the countries out there, the U.S. has the most to lose in terms of public health security during the next few years.

Michael Baughman

From the article:

“DANVILLE, Calif. (AP) — Mike Baughman considered himself one of the lucky ones, returning from Vietnam without any major injuries or psychological scars. But after falling ill nearly a half-century later, he found out he did not escape the war after all. . . .

” . . . The U.S. government acknowledges that liver flukes, endemic in the steamy jungles of Vietnam, are likely killing some former soldiers. Ralph Erickson, who heads post-deployment health services at the Department of Veterans Affairs, said about 700 cholangiocarcinoma patients have passed through the agency’s medical system in the past 15 years.”